Advertisement

Audrey Tautou lights up Champs-Elysées

Matthew Warren
Matthew Warren - [email protected]
Audrey Tautou lights up Champs-Elysées
Screenshot

Actress and face of Chanel Audrey Tautou switched on the Christmas lights on Paris' premier shopping avenue, the Champs-Elysées, on Wednesday evening.

Advertisement

The hovering hoops around the avenue's 200 trees mark a break with the traditional display of lights dotted in the trees' branches.

"We're no longer lighting up the trees but the whole avenue," said Jean-Noël Reinhardt, the president of the Comité Champs-Elysées which organizes the lights.

"We're breaking the tradition of vertical decorations in each tree to create a horizontal perspective along the avenue," he said, reported La Gazette des Communes.

Each tree carries three hoops which are programmed to run through 67 distinct colours with different levels of intensity. 

Belgian company ACT Lighting Design was selected from a competition to design the display. Organizers claimed that the electricity required was being offset through a partnership with a solar farm in the south of France. 

The lights, which cost €1 million ($1.34 million), already use 16 times less electricity than the traditional lightbulbs that were used until 2007.

Audrey Tautou is best known for the 2001 film Amélie and her role as Sophie Neveu in The Da Vinci Code. She played Coco Chanel in the 2009 film Coco Before Chanel and acts as the model for the brand's Chanel No. 5 perfume.

The 1.9 kilometre (1.2 mile) avenue des Champs-Elysées runs from the Place de la Concorde to the Arc de Triomphe. It is known for its shops, cinemas and luxury stores including Louis Vuitton and Cartier.


Audrey Tautou illumine les Champs Elysées par mairiedeparis

twitter.com/matthew_warren

More

Join the conversation in our comments section below. Share your own views and experience and if you have a question or suggestion for our journalists then email us at [email protected].
Please keep comments civil, constructive and on topic – and make sure to read our terms of use before getting involved.

Please log in to leave a comment.

See Also